A San Diego businessman (Bryan Bloom) who is part of a group that worries the California Air Resources Board's rules on diesel emissions will devastate parts of the state's economy for no scientifically valid reasons passed along this photo from New York City. This is what's at the address that the web site of "Thornhill University" lists for its U.S. campus.

http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/036157.html#

Gingersnap

09-17-2009, 01:42 PM

Before anybody jumps on "Crazy Californians" bandwagon, consider that most states have an air quality board or commission that passes these regulations and most of those boards and commissions are populated with political pay-backs and "stakeholder" representatives from special interest groups. Virtually none of those people have degrees in the sciences.

What happens in real life is that the commission tells the state air quality division to draft rules on whatever. The actual scientists in the division study the situation, the Clean Air Act, and the relevant regulations and propose new regulations that kind of do what the commission wants. There are public hearings (and the public does turn out for them). The rules are rewritten about 500 times by non-scientists and lawyers. The commission passes the rules and the lawyers get to work litigating the constitutionality of the new rules.

Then a new governor is appointed and the he or she populates the commission with his or her own political pay-backs and the beat goes on.

This happens in every state.

megimoo

09-17-2009, 04:24 PM

The air board knew
Diesel rules OK'd despite scientist's deception

According to a document provided this week by the California Air Resources Board, on Dec. 10, 2008, air board scientist Hien T. Tran admitted to Bart Croes, head of the air board's research department, that he had lied about having a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of California Davis. Tran was no minor player in the air board hierarchy. He was the lead scientist and coordinator of an ambitious, far-reaching study on diesel emissions that air board leaders thought made a powerful case for sweeping new rules governing the heavy-duty trucks responsible for most such emissions.
snip
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/25/lz1ed25top192452-air-board-knew/?uniontrib
.................................
Air board's shame
It won't review work of discredited scientist
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/mar/14/lz1ed14top213329-air-boards-shame/?uniontrib
............................
A San Diego businessman (Bryan Bloom) who is part of a group that worries the California Air Resources Board's rules on diesel emissions will devastate parts of the state's economy for no scientifically valid reasons passed along this photo from New York City. This is what's at the address that the web site of "Thornhill University" lists for its U.S. campus. Thornhill U, remember, is where the lead scientist on the air board's controversial study recommending sweeping new diesel emission rules got his Ph.D. by mail for $1,000. Sure looks real:
..........................
Hien Tran admitted Dec. 10 to CARB that he lied about having a Ph.D. in statistics from UC Davis. Instead, Tran said, his Ph.D. was from "Thornhill." Nevertheless, the air board still voted unanimously to adopt the rules based on his research Dec. 12 -- without acknowledging Tran's deception. Months and months later, Tran was demoted, but he still has a key role. Academic fraud, you see, is no big deal. The air board is on a mission. The normal concerns about making huge decisions based on tainted/flawed/untrustworthy/suspect research? The board couldn't be bothered.

So what if its lead scientist got his degree at the "campus" above. UPS, USC, UCLA, UCSD -- really, who can tell the difference?